Kitchen clean-up

A broken cabinet in my teeny tiny kitchen.

This is one of those MDF kitchen cabinets that you can buy at Canadian Tire for $99. When it was new, it had 3 tilt out bins down the left hand side. I would keep onions in one, potatoes in another, and the one at the bottom held carrots, rutabaga, or some other root vegetable. Of course because it is made of cheap MDF, the bins broke and were taken out.  I used the whole worthless space to store plastic grocery bags...a complete waste of space. I bought the cabinet for the extra storage and counter top space.  So this morning I asked my husband (again) if he would construct some shelves from material we already had here, and he agreed. He even has some iron-on finishing melamine tape to finish off the cut edges. That will be my job. But I was so excited about the extra cupboard space, I wanted to organize things right away. 

On the top shelf I have quart mason jars full of dried beans, split peas and three different kinds of lentils.  On the middle shelf  I have jars of grains.....barley, bulgar, couscous, cornmeal, rice, cornmeal and quinoa (which I have to repackage into a glass container). I've put the onions into the remaining bin.  Behind the closed door are 3 more shelves. The top one has my extra tin foil, freezer bags, saran wrap and the like, as well as my seasoning mixes that I make up myself like taco seasoning. Emeril's "Bam" spice for meat, Italian seasoning and Cajun seasoning mix. The middle shelf holds bread crumbs, bacon bits, dried minced onion,  beef bouillon and chicken bouillon powders, my homemade brown gravy mix and my "cream of" soup mix. The bottom shelf holds empty glass mason jars. On top, I kept my cooking utensils close by my stove as well as my tea bags. I cleaned off the rest of the surface so I can use it more efficiently. Now I feel motivated to keep organizing the kitchen.  I peeled and cut my 5 lbs. of carrots for the freezer this morning. I cleaned and disinfected my counters (baking soda and vinegar) and cutting boards (salt and lemon). Can you tell I'm excited? 

     But the most wonderful news of all....my passport arrived today. YAY!!!